


now she's breaking hearts (and taking names)

by LeaLPotter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Canon Compliant, F/M, Love Potion/Spell, POV Ginny Weasley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 05:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8784379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeaLPotter/pseuds/LeaLPotter
Summary: The sixth time he yelled he hadn't done shit to help her through she believed him – and was stunned to discover that wasn't the point at all. It wouldn't matter if Dean Thomas actually started tripping her every time they passed through a door, or if he pushed her off her broom every time she blocked him during Quidditch practice.





	

"Weasleys'."

It stood out smugly from the boggle of subdued whispers and Ginny lifted her eyes from her textbook, thankful for the interruption. She glanced over the pile of books Hermione had picked out for her (" _They're not that many, Ginny, really, if you fit in some reading time every day you'll get through them in a flash.")_  and frowned as she recognised Olivia Dunn and Romilda Vane as the leaders of the small but noisy group of girls. Just what they could want with a Weasley of any shape or size – let alone more than one – was absolutely worth wasting a moment of  _Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration_ for.

"It isn't allowed, though, is it?"

"We owl-ordered it. They have a package-option that Confounds detecting spells. Costs a peck more but it's  _so_ worth it."

Romilda smiled demurely and nodded, caressing the pinkish vial in her hand with one perfectly manicured nail. Ginny sighed and rolled her eyes, suddenly losing all previous interest. Her brothers must have had inhaled one too many toxic fumes the day they set up Easy-Order packages for Hogwarts's students –  _especially girls,_  Ginny thought. She wondered why not even one of the hare-brains gawking at their pack leaders thought to mock Vane's need to order cheap love potions to get whoever she had set her galleons on.

 _You know_ who _. People with glass roofs shouldn't talk out their arses like you're doing._

Ginny scoffed to herself and popped open another book. She was very proud of how she'd been able to browse through _that_  shelf in her brothers' shop with no more than mild curiosity, thank you ever so much. Looking back on the past four years or so, she felt she had every right to be proud. Her mind hadn't even remotely equated pink vials and Harry Potter to come up with disaster; she knew she didn't want to do it, would never do it and didn't need to do it.

_That's right. Dean._

And not just Dean; she wasn't mooning after Harry Potter not only because she had her own boyfriend, but because she wasn't mooning after Harry Potter, period. Had been over it for so long it would be laughable – that was, if she didn't pity her eleven year old self's misery so much. She didn't want pink vials and she didn't want Restricted spells just as much as she didn't want Harry Potter. Vane could make good use of it for all that Ginny cared.

However, as she watched the vial tip in Romilda's hand and the dark pink liquid slouch gently, something inside her twisted and churned and she hated her brothers a little bit.

 

 

The Gryffindor fourth year girls' dorm room was a baboon mess. Now, Ginny didn't pride herself of being Little Miss Tidy, but she was sure there were things  _living_  under some of the beds – things who didn't particularly care for baths, either. Fred would have turned his nose at the sight of it and  _that_ was saying something.

She had expected to have to go through everything in that hell's pit of a room, and get bitten once or twice before she found the vial. However, there it was, upright and proud in all its pink malignancy on one of the nightstands by the windows.

_Not your problem._

_I know, but –_

_Not your boyfriend._

_Of course not, still –_

_Not yours._

_Don't want him to be, just –_

_Not your friend._

He was, though. Harry was her housemate and her teammate; she had learned from him in DA and fought alongside him in the Department of Mysteries; they had spent holidays together and he had eaten her mother's Christmas pudding; she had rooted for him during the Triwizard Tournament and he was Ron's best friend.

_My friend._

_It doesn't concern you._

_My friend._

_It's not your business._

_My_ friend _._

 _A friend who wouldn't invite you to the Yule Ball, not even as a last resort. A friend who still thinks of you as an annoying infatuated brat clinging to his side. A friend who goes gaga over Chang but won't ever look twice at you. A friend who just_ forgot  _you had been possessed by Voldemort._

_He saved me. I owe him my life, and my father's life, and the lives of everyone I love a thousand times over. For that. And because he's my friend._

_Even if he was the one to put those lives in danger in the first place just by existing?_

Ginny flipped her mind the bird and grabbed the vial with a steady hand.

 

 

Watching the pink swirls slide around in the basin, Ginny racked her brain for any dormant feeling for Harry Potter and found none. Humming out of tune she trashed the empty vial and walked out of the bathroom with a light spring in her step.

 

 

Staring at Ron laid out in the infirmary bed with an ashen-faced Hermione sitting by his side, Ginny felt her hand close in a white-knuckled fist. She did not hate her brothers and she did not hate Vane; she did not even hate whoever had poisoned the bloody drink.

She hated herself because, even as she stared at her brother's unconscious form, she could not muster enough strength to will Harry in that bed instead of Ron.

 

 

She finally snapped the thirteenth time Dean tried to help her through the portrait.

The sixth time he yelled he hadn't done shit to help her through she believed him – and was stunned to discover that wasn't the point at all. It wouldn't matter if Dean Thomas actually started tripping her every time they passed through a door, or if he pushed her off her broom every time she blocked him during Quidditch practice.

The point was Harry's laugh when she told that horrible joke about the centaurs' Halloween poker game.

The point was the _Harry Potter Rules_  badge in the bottom drawer of her bedroom at the Burrow.

The point was nauseous relief over her brother being the one laying in an infirmary bed.

The point was pink swirls in a basin on the third floor bathroom.

The point was that she didn't give a rat's ass about Harry Potter anymore.

The point was she liked  _Harry_  a bit too much.

And it wasn't going away anytime soon.

 

 

When Ginny Weasley was four she loved  _Harry Potter_  the most.

Her mother had taken out a blank notebook and written down her daughter's favorite story with all the right details in her firm, clear handwriting; in the cover she'd glued green rhinestones to form the title. The little book had no drawings but it had Harry Potter and You-Know-Who, and Ginny had worn all the rhinestones off the cover.

When Ginny Weasley was ten she hated her brother, Ron, the most.

Ron talked and ate and played with Harry Potter and Ginny couldn't because she was " _still too young, love_ " so she took one garden gnome by his feet and let him loose in Ron's bedroom for a whole afternoon. All over his Chudley Cannon posters.

When Ginny Weasley was eleven she liked her diary the most.

She fancied Tom with dark hair and bright eyes and a bashful grin and fell a little in love with him. He listened patiently when she told about how Mrs. Norris was a wicked cat, a disgrace to all of her kind; how Justin Finch-Fletchey was spreading stupid, awful rumors about Harry Potter; how Colin was sweet but obnoxious with his superiority, claiming to know all there was to know about Harry Potter when Ginny was the one who'd had his book and stood up for him against Malfoy; how she would never be as smart, as confident or as important to Harry Potter as Hermione Granger was. Tom Riddle broke Ginny Weasley's heart for the first time.

When Ginny Weasley turned fourteen she stored  _Harry Potter_ away in the attic (careful to keep it far from the ghoul's reach, though); she gave Ron new Chudley curtains; she began and left a dozen diaries, burning each one after she'd had enough of insulting their blank pages.

When Ginny Weasley was fifteen she had a boyfriend she liked a lot, friends she loved to pieces, and subjects she hated with a passion. She liked her friend, Harry, because he was brave, and kind, and smart, and funny, and she could totally give him a hard time if she had to.

When Ginny Weasley, as honorary captain, shook Cho Chang's hand one Saturday morning, she knew she was going to win. Not for Gryffindor, or for her captain in detention, or even for her own competitive streak. She had to win because she needed to give Harry that Snitch and tell him everything about how he was brave, and kind, and smart, and funny, and how she could totally give him a hard time if he acted out.

She had to show him the spot in her soul that was shaped like Tom Riddle; the spot that would never wash off; the spot that made her weaker and stronger at the same time because only he could know it was there and still forgive her for it.

She had to let him know that Ginny Weasley wasn't the same that had ran after the Hogwarts Express six years ago, the one Ron saw, the one her family saw, the one through which not even Hermione could see, and let  _herself_  be okay with it.

She had to tell him she'd never written that stupid card all those years ago. Even if his eyes  _were_ bloody gorgeous and even if he  _was_  divine.

She had to take the Snitch from Chang because she was in love with Harry.

And that wasn't going away anytime soon.

 


End file.
